


Baker Street Tower

by the Girl in 221C (naienko)



Series: Talented People With Interesting Skillsets [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-01
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naienko/pseuds/the%20Girl%20in%20221C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A blending of CharleyFoxtrot's brilliant Talented People with Interesting Skillsets series and my own The Girl in 221C work. There is no sanity here, just crack.</p><p>And eventual Johnlock. And empath sex.</p><p>Crack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Did I Fool Ya?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [J. B. Rhine Was Kind of a Dick](https://archiveofourown.org/works/390248) by [CharleyFoxtrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharleyFoxtrot/pseuds/CharleyFoxtrot). 



Summer Rainault had always known she wasn't alone. One doesn't grow up tasting other people's emotions, even in a rural North Carolina town, without sensing the distinctive emotional weirdness of developing psychic abilities in at least one or two of one's peers. They didn't talk to each other - who wants to share differences in adolescence, when you want so desperately to fit in? Nevertheless, she knew of others.

She didn't know the word for her gift for a long time. That was what she called it, in her own mind: a gift. Or sometimes a curse. Sometimes it seemed that anyone she was drawn to also had a gift, even if they didn't know. She grew adept at understanding the causes of emotional states, to the point where sometimes she wondered if maybe she wasn't also capable of seeing the future sometimes. Other times, she just _knew_ things, things she had no reason to know.

Not until a psychic from across the country sought her out did she find the words for these abilities that were shaping her life. Empath. Precognitive intuition.

The two of them ignored the constraints of distance and worked together. Summer learnt to block; two became four. She practiced flexible shields; four became five, then six. She trained herself to be aware of the emotional states of those around her; and more psychics seemed to be gathering into her friends all the time. And then basic, ordinary human passions brought it all crashing down, and the fledgling circle, shattered, scattered back to its component parts.

For her own part, she chose to escape across the ocean. She never told any of them how she was still connected to them by a series of empathic links she couldn't bring herself to sever. Trying to lock herself in her own mind, it never occurred to her that the reason she was drawn to take the basement flat at 221 Baker Street, London, was that the building was full of psychics.

She didn't even try to look with her gift, worn ragged by trying to escape it. So until her idle tasting of the neighborhood emotional atmosphere crashed headlong into a mind as walled as a fortress, she didn't know. And _knowing_ , in that time-skipping, intuitive way, had always depended on sight to begin with. The hand not dragging the folding cart, stacked with Tesco bags, behind her came up to rub futilely at her temple from the shock of that impact.

Then she actually looked at the man holding the door into 221 Baker Street, and that was how Summer Rainault, empath and precognitive intuitive, came to meet John Watson, telepath and telekinetic, and Sherlock Holmes, finder and consulting detective.

* * *

She didn't tell them, to start with, but she'd never been in the habit of hiding her gift, exactly, just using the information it gave her, and letting people conclude whatever they wanted about how she got it. It made living downstairs from Sherlock Holmes interesting, for a start.

It didn't surprise Summer in the least, then, that John had put his head in the doorway of her flat practically the moment the two men came home from Buckingham Palace, shrugging apologetically. She'd already had to put up an extra shield, because Sherlock was streaming excitement like a small child, and galloped up the stairs like an entire herd of horses (or possibly deer; he really was much more skittish than most horses). So she said, thinking firmly of _walls, strong and solid, with blackout curtains at every window and all the doors closed_ , "Can you please ask him to tone it down just a bit? I really can't spend all my energy shielding him out."

And equally naturally John said, without the smallest evidence of surprise himself, "Of course, you're an empath, I'll see what I can do but you know how he is," and then gone off upstairs and done ... something, because very quickly the sense of pressure against her mind eased, and she was able to drop back to normal light shielding.

When John brought home a heavily-drugged Sherlock, in company with an empath, _that_ was a surprise.

Yes, Greg Lestrade was definitely a surprise.

Summer already had reason to know how hard it could be, keeping emotions hidden from other psychics; hadn't it been her task (yes, partly self-appointed, but nevertheless) to be at minimum aware of the state of her circle? She knew she hadn't a hope in hell of concealing the abrupt overrush of desire. (Truth be told, that was there for all three men, but Sherlock could be oblivious when it suited him, and John was so closely shielded from outside impressions she rather thought she'd have to turn up naked in his bed.)

But she tried. And after noticing Greg's wedding ring, she tried even harder.

After all, it was one thing to allow (accept might be a better word, but she always did like to pretend she had a little control over it) empathic links to her housemates - it was another thing entirely to form one with a man she barely saw, no matter how attractive his mind (and body) were. Especially a married man. She wondered if his wife knew about his empathy.

She wondered, in the shadows of the night, when she could taste the three upstairs (John a shape of shadow, like a cloud over the sun; Sherlock vibrant and kaleidoscopic, like an unexpectedly deep and rapids-filled stream; Greg like an enormous oak, casting calm like shade and drawing the lightnings), she wondered if she could bear to fit herself into a circle again. She wondered if John knew the depth of Sherlock's regard, or Sherlock comprehended the reality of Greg's respect.

She wondered if Greg knew her feelings, or her gift, and what would happen if she acted on any of those feelings.

For any of them.

* * *

Christmas in Baker Street.

Summer had hesitated for a long time over the invitation, but Mrs Hudson had cajoled, and Sherlock had deigned to say, "Please," so there she was, burying herself in the corner of the sofa and trying desperately to be unobtrusive. She tried not to catch John's eye as she was thinking how hideous his jumper was, although she couldn't avoid Sherlock's persistent gaze while he gave them a series of Christmas carols which were so beautiful.

Then her fingers brushed Greg's when he handed her a drink; all the thoughts went right out of her head and the two of them froze, gazes locked together. A little part of her mind winced in sympathy with John as all her shields collapsed, but the rest was wholly occupied in clamouring, "He knows, he knows!"

Gravity was probably the only force that could break their hands apart, their eyes falling away as the physical connection broke. Summer was certain her face was red (beet-red as one of her telekinetic friends used to say). She was desperately grateful to touch Molly's healer-mind, opening the street door and distracting everyone from the awkward moment.

Even that slight brush was painful on senses that hadn't been exposed so deeply in years, and Summer forced herself to tune everything else out while she spun up new shields. It took a while; she was deeply conflicted. Grounding and centering had never seemed so hard before. No sooner had she got even the first shield up than Molly's blast of embarrassment nearly took it down again.

Grimly, Summer hung on, blindly dragging up a second shield, then a third, each one stronger than the last. It felt like being wrapped in cotton, but that was far better than being prey to the violent emotions Sherlock seemed determined to provoke tonight. If she'd had enough brain left, she'd wonder what had gotten into him, or if this was a normal thing for the holidays. As it was, it was taking far more concentration than it should to keep up any shields.

A hand brushed her shoulder, and abruptly the 'noise' from outside her own skull dropped to barely a whisper. She opened her eyes and glanced around, seeing John wince hard at the same time as she noticed it was Greg's hand gripping her shoulder. As John strode over to Sherlock's bedroom door (what the hell had just happened?), and Molly, Jeannette and Mrs Hudson just looked bewildered, Greg's hand tightened almost to the point of pain and he whispered in her ear, "We need to talk."


	2. Not So Usual

A sudden access of anger flushed through Summer, bringing energy in its wake. Habit drilled to subconsciousness slapped up fortress-like shields in response to the anger. The anger of a projecting empath could kill.

She didn't have time for this. Not now. Not when through the link, attenuated behind her powerful shields, reverberated a cry that tasted of rage, despair, loss, and a level of suppression she hadn't sensed in years. "I have to rip that open," she said breathlessly, barely aware of speaking aloud.

"You have to sit down," a male voice crackled at her, and behind it faintly she could hear Mrs Hudson's soft, sympathetic "Oooh," and cool fingertips were on her wrist, over the pulse point.

She dragged herself free of the clutching hands, stumbled to the kitchen as Sherlock's door opened and looked up -- very up -- at a pair of silvery eyes that dragged at her empathy in a way that was entirely too familiar. "Sherlock," she managed, desperately trying to find the gray line, the balance point that would let her help him without hurting herself in his emotions.

He brushed past her, face set and voice flat. As quickly as it had come, the anger and the _need_ withdrew like a tide, sucking her energy -- and her consciousness -- out with it.

* * *

Blearily Summer realised she was being carried down the stairs. A splitting headache -- backlash -- warned her against opening her eyes, or, indeed, any motion. Male voices carried on a conversation over her head. Something about keeping an eye on Sherlock as well, and right over her head, Greg's voice, sharply, "Did you know, John?"

She missed John's reply, preoccupied with trying to keep her brain from bursting out of her skull just from breathing. It hurt to think; she was beyond grateful to whichever psychic had put shields back on her. She could still sense Sherlock, tasting of granite and endurance and blank walls, but nothing else.

"All right, come on; I'm to watch over you," Greg rumbled in her ear. "John will handle Sherlock, Mrs Hudson has Molly, and I've got you. Let's get you settled down." 

She felt cushions against her knees and managed not to fall facefirst into the loveseat. The lightswitch ticked, and she yelped, clapping her hands over her closed eyes. She heard Greg mumble something and the light went out, replaced by the dim glow of the desk lamp. She got her hand down and then it felt like something locked in the base of her spine, and she arched back helplessly, muscles tightening with shocking abruptness.

A whimper escaped her before she ground her lips together, straining to reclaim control over her body. Involuntary tears were starting in her eyes. The spasm let go at last and she slumped forward with relief. Distantly she was aware of physical pain from the clenched muscles.

"What the HELL was that?" growled Greg. Raggedly she managed, "Involuntary muscular reactio--" before the spasm returned. This time it jerked her shoulders back as well, pulling her whole spine into the arc.

Greg got one arm around her shoulders, and skin-to-skin bypassed the shields. Awareness of his frustrated concern and confusion slid in, somehow not evoking further mental pain; he was trying to pull her forward, out of the curve, and she gasped, "No, stop, don't -- it'll pass, oh god oh god it hurts -- " The last word spiralled up into a wail.

Greg pulled her face into the shoulder of his coat, muffling her choked and dry sobs. The other hand cradled the back of her head. When that spasm passed he muttered, "You want to tell me what the hell is going on here?"

"Too many foreign emotions; it has to go somewhere. I swear, I'll be okay. Go check on Sherlock, I know you want to," Summer lied, pushing at his chest.

"Sherlock has John," Greg replied firmly. "Why didn't I know you were an empath too?"

"You weren't paying attention," she tried to snap, shoving now, squirming away from the touch. "Stop, I can't -- I don't want to know what you're feeling!"

He drew his hands back. "Better?"

She sighed. "Ask me again in half an hour." Fingertips pressed into temples began to ease the worst of the pain. She shifted one hand to smooth downward over the centre of her forehead.

"Who else knows?" Greg asked. She could feel his gaze on her, but he kept his distance, as much as was possible on the loveseat.

"Unlike the rest of you, I don't hide. So I have no idea. John said something about it once ... I don't know. Considering everyone except Mrs Hudson and Jeannette tonight is a psychic ... and I'm not even sure about Mrs Hudson."

"Molly?!"

"Healer. Small. I'm not sure she's actually aware of it." Most of the sharp, stabbing pain had gone now, and Summer suspected the exhaustion would leave her sleeping on the loveseat tonight. Major movement was totally out of the question.

"Hmm. John said not to leave you alone until you fell asleep, and I'm going to listen to the doctor over you, especially after that ... whatever that was. How's the head? Still hurting?"

"Not much."

"You are going to stay right here and relax. Where's the paracetamol?"

"The what?"

"Painkiller."

"Oh. Bottle of Aleve by my bed."

Ordinarily Greg didn't like rummaging round someone else's flat when he was off-duty, but John's instructions had been clear and to the point, not to mention he'd been fully aware of the level of headache she'd woken to. Equally clear was the fact that Summer was incapable of taking care of herself tonight. He found he didn't like that; it seemed like a violation of her usual fiercely independent spirit.

A few seconds of persuasion was all it took to get the pills into Summer. He found a pirate motif slanket folded on the floor under the end table, and tucked it around her with care. "Now," he told her, "I am going to sit here, and you put your head here, yea, and just rest." She opened her mouth to protest and he held a finger near her mouth. "No protests."

With the hand not curved around her shoulders, he began smoothing the length of her hair, delicately stroking tiny wisps away from her face. "Fine," she released a long, shuddering sigh and snuggled deep into his chest. "Shhh," he soothed. Carefully he ghosted his fingers along the outer curve of her ear.

"Why are you here? Why is it you?"

"John told me to watch over you," he replied.

"Not what I meant."

"Give." He let a little DI's command into his low voice.

She spoke slowly, as if on the verge of sleep. "He didn't say to use your feelings for me like a shield against the world, but there it is. Don't even pretend. Empaths."

Greg stilled. "You ... weren't supposed to notice that."

He could feel the vibrations of her chuckle. "Even if I was a ... a muggle, at this point I would have noticed."

"I'm worried about you."

"That explains nothing."

He gave up trying to figure out if he was too sober for this -- whatever this was. Summer was just as persistent as Sherlock, in her own way. "Whatever is running through that mad brain of yours is likely correct."

"Emotions are not actions. I can't be right, you're married." There was a world of _dying flowers/dark red/heartbreak_ in those words.

"Not if Sherlock's right, I'm not," and his voice was a little grim as he said it. Faintly she felt the slash of determination underlying the words.

Her voice fell to a whisper. "Sorry," and she tried to push sympathy, carefully, toward him.

"Not your fault, luv," and he let himself, because it was Christmas, only the once, kiss the waves of hair at the top of her head.

When John peeked in some little time later, after seeing Molly into a cab headed for Bart's, they were both asleep.

* * *

"How big is your range anyway?" Summer was stretched, catlike, across the loveseat, one long leg thrown up over the back of it and her head pillowed on the narrow tab in front of the armrest. The dramatic length of her hair was pooled in Greg's lap.

Greg shrugged. "Don't think I've ever had reason to check. I tried not to use it, so much ... m'mum, now, she's a precog, and powerful; I've never known her to be wrong. When dad died, though, for me ..."

"It became a curse," Summer finished softly. He nodded.

"All my family's psychic on mum's side. I keep waiting for the girls to show some sign, but maybe the bloodline is too thin after two mundanes."

"I doubt it. Nobody in my family is more than latent, if that, except me, and look how I turned out."

"Yes, half-insane," Greg joked.

Summer put her tongue out at him. "No, seriously. What about your sibs?"

"Sister. One. She sees the past."

"Oh, retrocognitive. Or is it touch-based? And yet it was _you_ who joined the police. That's interesting."

"I wanted to be normal. And I'm good at what I do."

"So you don't actually know all that well how your empathy works."

"Oh, I know how it _works_."

"You just don't know its limits."

Greg shrugged. "Never saw the need."

"I have a feeling there might be need, but you've got a point," Summer admitted. "Well, my ... stranger-range, I guess you'd call it, is pretty small. It's got something to do with line of sight, because while I can just barely sense the street here, if I went outside I could reach across the street and up and down the block. But you, now, I could sense you all the way at the Yard, some ten miles away."

"What, because you know me?" Greg was incredulous.

"Partly. Also because I'm starting to be linked to you. There are people I'm linked to I can sense halfway around the world. Then again," Summer shrugged, in turn, "I've been linked to Rishuya for over fifteen years; that has an effect too."

"That is the weirdest sort of empathy I've ever heard of."

Resignation and pain flickered briefly, like a blow. "I'm not normal, even by psychic standards."

"So you link to people you know, and the link lets you ignore any distance between you? That could be a useful trick. Don't sell yourself short." He patted her shoulder.

"It's not exactly voluntary, and it's not 'people I know'." She hesitated, hoping to find the right words. "The linking ... just happens. With people I ... care about."

With his hand still on her shoulder, Greg tasted what she didn't say. Burgundy-dark and the flavour of fermented grapes -- people she loved, she meant, though it was a shade of love Greg hadn't come across very often.

Inconsequentially, he said, "I filed for divorce after Christmas."

Summer rolled over to meet his gaze, pushing sympathy, bitter and sweet like almonds, at him.


	3. O. Lover

They looked at each other for a long moment, the two empaths, each one sensing the singing of tension in the silence, the riffling of shield-edges about to come down.

"What you're feeling ... " Summer said, slowly. 

"You feel it too," Greg responded. "Is this," his hand made vague shapes in the air, "expected? For empaths?"

"Yes." 

Their voices seemed barely to touch the depth of stillness, as if the world was listening with held breath.

"What you said," Greg began, "about emotions not being actions ... "

"Emotions," Summer replied, "do not have consequences. Only actions."

"I prefer actions," he said simply, and kissed her.

Whatever he had been expecting, from the brief experiences of skin-to-skin touch, this wasn't it. It was both vastly more intense and amazingly more subtle, neither overwhelming nor underwhelming but simply whelming; an encompassment of every emotional sense he had. They seemed to be centred in a rainbow -- he could see the slight shadings of even the fleeting hints of her emotions, and if his mouth wasn't so busy already he hazily suspected there would be a very bad taste in it.

It was astonishing and terrifying and he couldn't decide if he ever wanted it to end.

Fortunately that decision wasn't entirely his, and not at all conscious. They both seemed to run out of air at about the same time, and pulled mouths away. Greg found to his mild surprise that their hands were clasped together, and the back-and-forth flow of emotions, while mitigated, still slid between them like the tide.

"Well, those questions are answered," Summer whispered at length. "Where would you like to go next?"

Astonishment made a swift, buzzing path through Greg's mind, followed closely by a wild rip of desire undercut by caution. She pushed herself up on one elbow and threaded the fingers of her free hand into his hair. "You know it's no use telling you don't want to go anywhere next, that was a mistake you didn't mean to make."

"Oh, hell," he said, and jerked his hand away. Her hand clenched, preventing him from moving any further.

"If you decide to stop here," she said quietly, "that's fine. Or anything you like, it's fine. Just don't think we can just -- pretend this didn't happen," Greg wanted to recoil from the lash of anger accompanying that phrase, "or carry on ignoring our feelings."

"Empaths can't." He let it lie there, blunt and cold.

"Exactly." She drew a deep breath, letting him go and sitting up. "I won't try to tell you that I don't care, either way. But there are -- no consequences, for me. I won't choose _for_ you."

Greg flung himself backward to the floor, lying there and staring up at the ceiling, dim with the reflected shadows of early evening. Both hands came up to rub at his face. "This is stupid," he burst out. "We each know what the other is feeling, and it's still this complicated."

"Welcome to life," Summer said, dryly. "Just because we have gifts doesn't make it easier."

Greg could feel her watching him, radiating ostentatious patience and bedrock-solid calm, every bit of it washed with the newly-distinctive taste of _wine/burgundy/love_. It made the whirring of his thoughts easier to bear, though it didn't give them any better direction.

The shadows slid across the ceiling, sunset shooting sharp spikes of light to impinge in gold and carmine splashes on the walls. Greg thought it was like emotion made visible to everyone, the way he saw things.


	4. The Boy's Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the text is taken directly from Greg's chapter in CharleyFoxtrot's original work. I just couldn't better her dialogue.

_Some days it's just not worth chewing through the straps,_ was all Summer could think when the shockwave of emotion crashed into her day-shields. She'd fallen into a bad habit of leaving herself more open than had been her wont in the States. That sense of the world, here where the world was still different enough to bear into her awareness, made her feel alive, anchored her.

And now, of course, the other shoe dropped, and hit her on the head. How was it Greg described the synaesthetic impressions of emotions? Taste, colour, sound -- whomever was out there, had to be just outside the building, was feeling so strongly even for her it was coming across nearly every physical sense as well as mental ones. She could have pointed directly to the person without ever seeing them.

Anger, predominately. Anger like hot iron, burning through whatever it touched and throwing light and sparks in every direction, wholly uncaring of what caught flame. Familiar anger, too, the anger of being opposed, gleeful anger, the sort of anger that set the eyes to snapping, lips curling in a sneer, teeth grinding. Anger paired, sharply, in a hideous contrast, with triumph. The triumph of things falling into place, high singing glee as each piece slotted in and all the problems went away.

Underneath both, running in a constant sick stream, lay cruelty. This, too, was unutterably, wrenchingly familiar -- the whole rancid concoction, the nauseating triumph of a boy whose greatest pleasure lay in making others, any others, squirm. Squirm like a butterfly caught on a pin.

And all this, the whole ugly, vibrant, day-glo bright melange, was entering 221 Baker Street, was mounting the stairs, slowly, the anger rippling away under the triumph, and anticipation swelling in as if part of an orchestra.

What terrified Summer the most, desperately trying not to huddle away from the psychic sensations, wasn't even the bruising mixture of emotions, nor the content of the emotions -- it was the sheer purity of feeling. These was no sense, at all, of hiding, or concealment. Whomever this was -- and by now Summer had a good idea of whom it might be -- not only had no desire to conceal his emotions, he deliberately splashed them out for all to see.

She wanted, desperately, to dash up the stairs and drive this _intruder_ out; with words, with fists, with weaponry, with whatever it would take to send him away, far away. But knowledge and intuition, _knowing_ with its terrible burning certainty, held her back.

Sherlock notwithstanding, better never to ever come to that one's notice. Hard enough, more than hard enough, to walk through the world trying to tip the balance to creation. Infinitely harder to do so under the attentions of someone willingly given only to destruction.

Summer shivered, wrapped her arms around herself tightly, and waited for it to end.

* * *

She'd grown used, in the three months of their relationship, to simply ignoring unexpected emotion sliding down the link from Greg, as she ignored the input from every other link she'd formed over the years. It would be more than overwhelming to be constantly processing that input, along with her own, unmanageable, emotions, and her own daily life, and -- just no.

So the shock of grief from Greg-ward didn't really get her attention. The link to John was silent, as ever it was, blocked off by his utterly impermeable shielding.

When her phone rang, then, there was no warning. Greg's voice, choked with locked back tears and anger and a desperate desire to make it all a dream, was the first awareness she had of anything at all going wrong, again, in the little safe world she'd built piece by piece.

"Sherlock is dead."

The world came apart under her feet. "I -- what?" Was it wrong that her first thought was _What did you do?_ "How?" Bracing herself to hear anything, really, other than what he said next, stark and simple as Greg always was.

"Suicide."

"Fuck." Her voice cracked under the weight of it. "Are you -- no, of course you're sure." She sat down, heavily, knees refusing to support her. "Where are you? Where is John? What -- no. No. I need, I ... come home, come here." Tears, burning and blurring, slid cold trails down her face.

"Bart's. John's at Bart's. It was there. I ... meet me there, luv. All together."

"Yes. Yes, okay. I'll ... I -- " She couldn't find the right words, so she just pushed _coral/jasmine/devotion_ down the link and shoved the phone into a pocket.

Bart's was _horrible_. Beyond horrible. Worst of all was John, looking strangely absent. Shock, she knew. Those marks were on her face, too.

The blood left on the ground wasn't so bad. She couldn't bring herself to go over there; she stayed by John, desperately, wretchedly hoping against hope that John's fortress would finally break open under this strain and she could at least help him; grief shared was grief halved, after all.

But no, John was as mute as the statue he resembled right now, and all Summer could do was bury her face in Greg's chest and try not to spread her own horror and grief like stormclouds.

The two of them, somehow, got John home, to 221 Baker Street, and tucked up with a blanket and a cup of tea; he utterly refused to go to bed, and Summer didn't blame him. Then the two of them went back downstairs and made love, in grief and life-affirmation, for hours.

It never even occurred to her to check the empathic link to Sherlock.

* * *

The funeral was tiny. Almost hasty, except that she knew all that had gone into keeping it quiet, and private, and tiny. Over Greg's strenuous objections, and John's more resigned ones, she'd drugged herself beforehand, carefully and just enough to render outside emotions muted. She _could not_ carry anyone else's grief today.

It was nearly over, the casket being lowered into the waiting earth, and Summer was whispering a private prayer under her breath. She felt Greg letting out a shaky breath beside her, and then pulling another in, sharply, as shock poured into the link, and something else, so fleeting she couldn't read it at all. Then he was excusing himself, and walked away, an emotion as loud as a thought holding Summer to her seat.

Gladness.

She _knew_ , from empathy, from intuition, Greg Lestrade was not glad Sherlock was dead. She _knew_. She looked after him, walking away, and swallowed sharply, hesitantly reaching down inside herself, piecing through the links -- finding Sherlock's.

Alive.

Summer couldn't even begin to put names to what flared up inside her, sun-bright and painful. All she knew was that she had to see, had to _observe_ , had to have the evidence of more than one sense.

She didn't even realise she'd been moving until her eyes found the three figures half concealed among the trees. Greg, Sally ( _Sally?!_ , her consciousness questions, shocked, and _Sally,_ her empathic sense confirms, feeling along the changed relationship there) -- Sherlock. She wanted to hurl herself at the man, hit him, hug him, breathless and giddy.

Then she heard Greg say, slowly, "So you don't have a ... " and Sherlock answer, "Oh, I have a talent."

Silently, then, she insinuated herself under Greg's arm and let her emotions off the leash. Sherlock turned away from his own funeral, toward the three of them. 

"Summer," the detective acknowledged. "I'm honestly surprised you never picked up on it, either of you. Summer did. None of you are entirely idiotic."

Greg gave him a look sharp with disapproval. "Get on with it, Sherlock. And while you're at it, give me a good reason why I shouldn't go down to your funeral and let everyone know that you're alive."

"He can't," Summer interjected. "I don't know why, though." She poked Greg in the side gently. "Stop glaring."

Sherlock continued without being prodded. "Moriarty," he said, glancing back toward the funeral. "He had snipers poised to kill John, Mrs. Hudson ... and you, Lestrade."

Summer swallowed hard. "Unless you killed yourself."

Sherlock nodded. "If I didn't jump. That's why he killed himself: he was the dead-switch, the only person who could call off the attack. If I had him, I had a way out of it."

Greg gulped, in turn. "Wh –- "

"Don't be stupid. He chose the three people in this world whom I actually value and threatened them," Sherlock cut him off, silvery eyes flashing. "The snipers are still out there, and I have to take them down before I can return." They were all silent for several long, awkward moments at this declaration.

"So what are you, then?" Sally said. "Other than a freak, anyway." The two empaths could feel the new affection lacing the words, and Summer ducked her head sideways to hide a smile.

"He's a finder," she said, half into Greg's coat.

"Correct," Sherlock replied. "A real-time, location-based clairvoyant. I _find things_."

"I'm not sure 'clairvoyant' is exactly the right term," Summer said in an undertone. Sherlock heard her anyway.

"For me, it is," he said. "I see what's around the thing I'm trying to find, but I don't always know _exactly_ where it is. If I could reprogram it to just give me GPS coordinates, it would solve a lot of problems."

Greg laughed outright; Sally choked slightly. Summer flashed a smile and said sweetly, "Lazy." Sally's surprise at the more casual bantering came through clearly, and Greg's pleasure at Sally's inclusion in the select circle. 

"It's what led me to research deduction," Sherlock admitted, ruffling his dark curls. "I often had a general idea of what was going on but needed more information. These days I barely need to rely on my gift."

"Using it almost seems like cheating, doesn't it?" Summer said, and he nodded, watching John.

"So then," Greg said, finally. "You're leaving?"

Sherlock nodded and glanced over toward Greg. "Moriarty should have forced me to choose. It would have been more effective."

The two empaths exchanged a look. They knew. Summer thought Greg could point to the exact moment friendship swelled into love for Sherlock, warm and friendly and affectionate and protective. Like Summer's for Greg, Sherlock's love for John tasted like mulled wine, spiced and hot.

Sally left before anyone else, muttering something about Baker Street and cameras. Summer watched her go, thinking about sisterhood and how to care for difficult men. She and Sally would have to talk, sometime. Soon. But for now ... she turned back to Sherlock, trying to ease the little threads of sadness in him.

"Sherlock." She waited until she had his attention. "Use your gift, this time. All of them. Don't dawdle."

His answering smile was feral and cruel. She let her own anger reflect back at him.

"I need you two to take care of John," he said, looking over at the blond by the gravestone again.

"Of course," Summer said. Greg added, "Don't do anything stupid," The setting sun reddened both mens' hair as they locked gazes. "Don't go getting yourself killed just because you fell in love."

Sherlock looked very much like he wanted to ask a question. Greg shook his head. "I don't know how he feels, not for sure," he said.

"Me either," Summer commented. "Not even through the link. He shields like a fortress, and all the doors are barred."

Greg added, "I've never got so much as a blip of surprise from him." At this, Sherlock looked surprised.

"But I don't have to be an empath to know his emotions right now," Summer remarked, watching the line of John's back. She stepped away from Greg, took a deep breath, and threw her arms around Sherlock. "I love you," she said, heartfelt, into his coat. "Come back." Without looking either man in the eyes, she walked across to John, touching him on the shoulder softly.

"Let's go home, John."


End file.
